DOC'TRIN is a multi-talented DJ that can easily adapt to many kinds of music. We met him today to know more about his tastes and his background.Electransmission : Can you describe Doc’trin? Doc’trin: It’s all about my passion for music. It’s all about your passion for music. It’s about putting those two things together and having a really good time! It’s about completely losing control, letting the rhythm grab your soul, take over your mind and literally possess your body.
I see the dance floor as an alternate universe where none of your problems exist for a moment in time. Once you blur out the distractions (ei: reflecting on your career, wondering where your friends are, worrying if you look stupid dancing) it becomes just you and the music and it becomes an intimate experience.
Parties are a celebration of life! Maybe you’ve had a really bad week or maybe you’ve had a really great one, but either way you made it out alive and you should celebrate the fact. Why let anything get in the way? I just try to keep the crowd focused on good tunes.
Electransmission: Where does the name Doc’trin come from? Doc’trin: I realised that I have many ideals concerning nightlife and I love talking about them with people. I believe the game needs to change. Also, I was watching The Wire at the time and thought it would be a cool prison name hahaha.
Electransmission: What musical background do you come from and who are your inspirations? Doc’trin: It’s funny, I like to tell people I “didn’t grow up with music”. Fact is, my parents were extremely strict at the time and all I was allowed to listen to was “praise music”. Even soft Christian rock was a big taboo. I’d be lucky to catch a Phil Collins song in a department store!
In 6th grade, I remember trying to test the waters with Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby”. They came running into the room to shut it off and scold me hahaha. Out of respect, I followed their rule until the age of 17, when my convictions and hunger for music couldn’t be contained any longer.
New Found Glory was my first band and Warped Tour was my first show. It’s been a crazy musical journey from there, basically starting from scratch since I didn’t really have much of a preface to pop culture. Over 99% of the songs in my repertoire have no connection to my upbringing. The Beatles? Who are The Beatles? Hahaha.
I guess you can say I’m inspired by “music with soul”. I know this is a very abstract and subjective characteristic to gauge, but I get this inexplicable feeling that I can tell the difference. Did that sound pretentious?
A few local DJs I really look up to right now are Guilty, Lexis, Scott Clyke & Andy Williams, The E.S.L Crew, Night Trackin’, Cocktail Club Soundsystem, Wilcox&Promise and DJ LUV.
As for live sets that have really impressed me, I thoroughly enjoyed Theo Parrish, Caribou, Floating Points (twice), Martyn, L-Vis 1990, Altered Natives, Ramadanman and El-B to name a few.
Electransmission: What got you into DJing? Doc’trin: My friends. I owe it all to them. They know how much music is very huge part of my life and they’ve been extremely encouraging.
Shout outs right now to my best friend Josh Gallou who literally pushed me into it, Adam Wilcox who had incessantly been feeding my soul with the “cream of the crop” of his gigantic music catalogue, Daniel Lafleche for giving me my first gigs and always being really supportive, Matt Bain who committed himself to helping me beat match with turntables and Mauricio Lobos, Wilcox&Promise and The Warm Up crew who’s been putting me out there a lot recently.
I also owe huge personal biggies to Bus, Bowly, Jacques Greene, Guilty and Lexis for getting me into a whole new sound over the past year! Can’t imagine living without it now.
Shout outs to Dan Hadley and Steve Lud at Nice Music / Death Of Vinyl for providing a steady flow of goodies while being really helpful and generous. Dan was there before I even knew how to play a record! Speaking of generous, last-but-not least shouts to Johnny Jewel for kick-starting my collection with a bunch of “Italians” records for next-to-nothing! Hope I didn’t miss anyone.
Electransmission: Let’s talk about the first vinyl you bought. Doc’trin: The first vinyl I bought was a 7” called Palmitos Park by El Guincho. I bought it at his show because it only costed 3$ more if you bought the CD. It looked so nice and I was in a spending mood, so it was like “guess I gotta get a record player now”.
The first 12” I bought was Outline by Gino Soccio, (again, before even owning a record player). I actually bought 5 copies because they literally had 40 of them on sale (sealed!) at the Salvation Army for 25 cents each! This was only a few years ago too!
In fact, I didn’t even buy it right away because I wasn’t sure what it was. Everything hinted italo disco (the year 1979, the song titles with the word “dance”, the italian name and the fact it was made in Montreal) but the cover of the album is so unappealing and I was so uninformed at the time, for me it was only guess work and I just wasn’t in the mood to bring home a bad album.
It’s funny because I had just seen Mike Simonetti spin to almost nobody at Coda the week before, which was my first conscious introduction to italo and I had asked one of the openers, Devon (who I learned DJ’d one of Montreal’s only disco nights at the time Let The Music Play (joined by Matt Bain a while later)) which italo artists she recommended. She had mentioned Gino Soccio, but this only became apparent to me days after my trip to the Salvation Army.
I headed back there as soon as I could, hoping no one else got wise to such a steal and ended up buying 5 albums. At that price, I should have bought all 40. Seriously, what were all those sealed Soccio albums doing there?
Electransmission: Sounds you play are mostly disco, funk, house, acid and techno. What made you decide to explore this unison? Doc’trin: I think these genres can be linked together very easily. It just seems like a natural connection, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t primarily influenced by The Loose Joints DJs and Night Trackin’ DJs who would always fuse these genres together quite seamlessly.
Electransmission: What’s your opinion of Montreal scene? Doc’trin: I absolutely love Montreal. I wouldn’t move to any other city right now. Unfortunately, I feel like we’re acting extremely spoiled. There are tons and tons of amazing artists, DJs and festivals that come through our city all the time, and although I realize it would be impossible to catch every one, the general attitude I see at these events are so puzzling to me.
There’s too many completely absurd “unwritten rules” about nightlife. Here’s a few somewhat-humorous examples:
An event is only as good as the amount of friends that will be present. Figure out where they are all going and follow them. Don’t click “attending” on Facebook until those stats are up!
Your friends obviously all go to the “hottest” bars and clubs in the city, so obviously the music will be good there.
Try really hard to get on guest list somehow. If you can’t, go somewhere you can so you can feel special about it.
Show up around 1am. Make sure not to dance until the floor looks busy! You might accidentally encourage someone.
Take a smoke break with the troops for 10-15 minutes. Go back and dance for 20 minutes to music you never really listen to on your free time. Take another “smoke” break.
Dance until you realize you won’t have a good time unless the DJ plays that song you’ve been listening to all day.
Make as many “appearances” to as many parties as you can. Hopping = “mad street cred.”
Once you’ve done your rounds, start inquiring about guest lists to mysterious after parties because the night’s almost over and you have nothing to show for it except for a handful of party-pose pictures of you and all your friends looking “sooooooo goooood”!
Now I know what you’re about to say: “this attitude is not only particular to Montreal”. I agree, and perhaps it has a lot to do with “today’s generation” (which really does need a kick in the pants), but I’ll still think that other cities get the same shows as we do and seem way more appreciative and genuinely excited about it. I hope I don’t sound like a cynical DJ here. All these observations were made long before I started mixing. I noticed these things as a dancer and always felt bad for the DJs who were playing a killer set to an empty floor.
I’m just saying that I would love to see more people authentically enjoying the music. Have you ever watched the Pump Up The Volume documentary? Or how about Maestro - Larry Levan & Early DJ Culture? THOSE are some real music fans! Scope these docs, they are both “Youtubeable”.
At any rate, I try not to pay too much attention to what other people are doing when I go out. I consider myself blessed to live in a city that has so much to offer, so at least if I’m enjoying it I’ll be ok. On the plus side, I consider Night Trackin’ greatly responsible for getting the scene to be where it is today. They sent us amazing artists such as In Flagranti, Dâm Funk, Jacques Renault, L-Vis1990, Jimmy Edgar, Azari & III, Marytn, Floating Points and Kyle Hall into town.
Right now, Lexis (Musicismysanctuary.com) & Guilty (Lookout) have been relentlessly bringing in the big guns with epic names like Mount Kimbie, 2562, The Lady Blacktronika, Lone, Ramadanman, Zed Bias and El-B.
Markus Garcia, Sinjin Hawke & Laurent Bassols have put themselves all out on the line by throwing some of Montreal’s best bang-for-your-buck parties at Blue Dog with 5$ shows with special guests such as Brenmar, Contakt, Double Dutch and Canblaster.
I also wanted to mention that both Bus and Cocktail Club Soundsystem having been putting focus on raising up local emerging artists, while the latter recently put together an unforgettable night with the legendary Voodoo Funk.
Know what’s the best regular-hours night in Montreal? The Goods. It’s a monthly at Sala Rossa by Scott Clyke & Andy Williams that has been going on for many years and attracts a steady following (who make sure to show up extra-early knowing they are going to dance for hours and hours to some of the most expertly-selected house, disco, funk, hip-hop, rnb, reggae, soul, afrobeat, techno, etc, etc, etc out there). Everyone smiles at you on the dance floor and gives you that knowing-look like “Ohhhh yeahhhh, you and I are at The Goods. This is so sweet”.
Let’s face it, not only has our city been overwhelmed by good nights, but it’s just flourishing with local (yet internationally-known artists) representing Montreal in a virtual tuxedo such as Hissy Fit, HGLTD, Bowly and Jacques Greene (who has recently released an official remix of Radiohead’s “Lotus Flower”).
It seriously is the land of milk and honey over here, so let’s be good to it.
Electransmission: Projects coming for Doc’trin? Doc’trin: Yeah I just bought a Korg EMX-1 and would really really like to get into production.
Also, I have quite a bit of DJ sets coming up that I am really excited for; specifically the American Apparel Fashion Show i’m spinning in a nearby shopping mall today.
My goal is to play a lot more after parties. Now that I’ve played at a few places (I shouldn’t mention), i’ve realized that “afters” are my favorite type of set to play. I also want to continue doing my bus stop mixes since I have some more free time.
P.S - I could be interested in buying a generator so I can take my entire set up outside! Anyone have any leads?
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This interview is also available in french
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